Sophie Handford led the school climate strikes in 2019 and is now district ward councillor for Paekakariki Raumati district. Photo / Supplied
In 2019 Sophie Handford founded School Strike 4 Climate NZ, and was subsequently elected to the Kāpiti Coast District Council aged 18, making her the youngest elected official in the country. As a powerful voice for bolder action on climate change, Handford will be moderating a panel discussion at New Zealand's leading innovation summit Festival for The Future.
The first house I lived in was a tiny little bach in the seaside village of Paekākāriki. The house was quite rumpty and, at Christmas, if my parents got a tree that was too big for the house, instead of cutting the top off the tree, dad would chainsaw a hole in the floor. That's how rumpty the place was.
I love how I've grown up on the same property as my grandparents. It's in front of the house dad grew up in, and next door to my aunt. When I was about 3, my parents decided to bowl the bach and build something more sturdy and designed to be as eco-friendly as possible. The new house is in front of the old bach, and very close to the beach. As a result, I've always respected the ocean as a force of nature.
I came home from school one afternoon and my parents were reading a letter from the council about how, over the next 50-100 years, we'd probably experience some impacts of climate change. Things like coastal erosion, sea-level rise and severe weather events, some of which we're already starting to see. I love Paekākāriki with all my heart, from the village to the surrounding hills and marine environment, and that letter was a wake-up call. It hit me then, that we all have to be responsible and instead of being paralysed by fear, I knew I wanted to act.
Letters have been a bit of a theme for me. When I was in Year 8, I wrote a letter to my older self, about wanting all the children of the world to have access to clean drinking water and for all girls to have access to education. Bake sales and fundraising efforts were also quite a feature of my school years, whether we were collecting for Sustainable Coastlines, Walk For Refuge, or the 40-Hour Famine. There were also a lot of bucket collections, because from an early age, I realised it was a privilege to live in a warm, dry house with everything I needed, and I didn't want to take that privilege for granted.
For my family, it's normal to get things from the tip shop, rather than buy new things all the time. Our TV has a blue line through the screen. Clearly, another family found that annoying, so they took it to the dump but it's in perfectly good working order. We also got an excellent couch from the tip shop, and in 2019 I only bought op shop clothes. Since I've been on the council, I've bought a few new staple pieces, like a nice blazer, but I still tend to buy most things second-hand. We need to break down the stigma of second-hand goods, because they should be something to be proud of, plus they're only a fraction of the price of new things.
My parents have always encouraged my curiosity and my activism. They want me to be aware of what's going on, and also be empowered. As a family, we've always explored ways to live with a strong sense of protection for the environment, and to think about how we can raise our voices and have tough conversations.
Sometimes I need a break from thinking about the future, or discussing environmental challenges, and I really enjoy hanging out with people who have contrasting views to me. When I get together with one of my closest friends, we talk about food and reality TV, because I'm still a normal 21-year-old and I need to find a good balance.
It's wild when I think about the School Strike 4 Climate. That journey started early in 2019 when I'd just graduated from Kāpiti College. I was about to start university - a Bachelor of Science, majoring in environmental studies - when I realised it was a crucial moment, that we were at a fork in the road with climate change, so I decided to take a gap year and be active in the environmental space.
We started by putting the call out on social media and within two weeks we had 45 organisers across the country and they built teams to deliver strikes on the ground in various places. It was a lot easier than I anticipated, because it turned out everyone was waiting for something like this. It really resonated with so many people and there was so much energy for action like this. It took just a few of us to say, "here's a framework", then we all jumped on board and set a date. That was such a whirlwind.
Some of our media encounters were pretty interesting. There were interviewers who were quite aggressive and there were times I'd get off the phone in tears. Some of them didn't like that I was 18 and had strong views. Sean Plunket, Mike Hosking and Heather du Plessis-Allan were all quite intense and coming out of those interviews, I felt pretty disillusioned about the purpose of media. It was an important learning journey though, to recognise the lack of diversity of voices in media, the unfair playing field, and how some journalists like to marginalise certain groups, or just plain put people down.
As the strike grew, we mobilised more than 170,000 people and that was quite complex, It was challenging too, to manage all those aspirations, and personalities that sometimes clashed, especially when we were tired and working to tight time frames and all of us were volunteers. I certainly learnt a lot about conflict resolution.
On the day, September 27, 2019, we delivered our demands to Parliament. Leaders from all the different parties met with us, and there was a sense they wanted to listen. Parliament later declared a climate emergency, and the Zero Carbon Bill was passed, although it was not as ambitious as we would've liked, but we were stoked it got over the line, and with cross-party support. The main thing is, wheels were set in motion, the conversation picked up and the Prime Minister reached out directly for a public Q&A which garnered the attention of important people. It was also crazy seeing people like Greta Thunberg tweeting photos of us at the Beehive.
Straight after the strike, I started campaigning for the local body election. At "meet the candidate" events people would ask about my qualifications. They'd question what I could possibly know, being so young. Or I'd be introduced at events with comments like, "you can either vote for this candidate or an 18-year-old girl".
On election night, the votes were taking ages to come in, so a bunch of us went to a barn dance that was being held that same night in Paekākāriki. We were curbing our nerves with line dancing when the text came with the link to the results. We all went outside to check the numbers and that's when I saw I'd won.
The biggest thing I felt was shock. I had such a good campaign team but I did not expect with any inch of my body to win - which comes down to self-belief or imposter syndrome - but I wasn't sure the community was ready for someone like me to represent them. But they were, and two days later I was in the council chambers for the inauguration ceremony. It all happened so fast.
I'm near to the end of my first term as a district councillor for the Paekākāriki-Raumati ward on the Kāpiti District Council, and I'm so grateful to my colleagues. The staff have helped me make the most of this opportunity but not in a patronising way, but because they're supportive and want to see me thrive. There have been highs and lows, but I'm standing for a second term because I want to be a part of helping to set ambitious and aspirational targets to create a more liveable future.
Kāpiti Coast District Council is going through an exciting period of change, which makes me feel really optimistic for the future - which I haven't always felt – because it's all about co-governance and partnership under Te Tiriti, and encouraging people to do things that help us maintain hope. And if I ever lose my passion, I remind myself why I'm doing this, because it is possible to effect essential change, and that is exciting.
• Now in its 11th year, Festival for the Future is a three-day event that brings together innovators, entrepreneurs and creators as they search for ways to work towards positive change and is being held in Wellington and online, July 29-31.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.